Energetics of active fluctuations in living cells

Abstract

The nonequilibrium activity taking place in a living cell can be monitored with a tracer embedded in the medium. While microrheology experiments based on optical manipulation of such probes have become increasingly standard, we put forward a number of experiments with alternative protocols that, we claim, will provide new insight into the energetics of active fluctuations. These are based on either performing thermodynamic--like cycles in control-parameter space, or on determining response to external perturbations of the confining trap beyond simple translation. We illustrate our proposals on an active itinerant Brownian oscillator modeling the dynamics of a probe embedded in a living medium.

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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Activity driven fluctuations in living cells
• Minimal Model of Stochastic Athermal Systems: Origin of Non-Gaussian Noise
• Effects of active fluctuations on energetics of a colloidal particle: superdiffusion, dissipation and entropy production
• Escape of a passive particle from activity-induced energy landscape: Emergence of slow and fast effective diffusion